


The truth is never blue

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Advice, Comfort/Angst, Ethics, F/M, Gen, Healing, Jemma Simmons-centric, Relationship Advice, Speculation, Women being there for other women, post framework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: Simmons is having a hard time dealing with Fitz's involvement in helping Radcliffe. The women in her life help her deal with that, each one with their own particular advice: talk to Bobbi, talk to Fitz, get away. Jemma listens to them all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have been mulling over this ever since The scene From Hell, when Robo!Fitz says "Well, regardless of who it is, it's my fault" and Jemma answers "It is." So I started thinking about Jemma being Not That Okay with Fitz's involvement as she seemed in previous episodes. And that's how this happened. This turned into a festival of the AOS ladies helping Jemma cope. I'm okay with that. I didn't work with what could have happened to them inside the Framework, because I didn't want to go too deep into that; this is mostly consequences to what we do know as far as "Self control" goes. 
> 
> Title is a loose translation from "Sinceramente tuyo" by Joan Manuel Serrat ("Nunca es triste la verdad"). If you can, go listen to that song, it sets the mood for this story a lot. 
> 
> Warnings: Bobbi asks Jemma if she wants to break up with Fitz, and Fitz wonders the same, but neither of them wants to break up!!! Just mentioning it because I know it might upset some people. Also, language.

**_Don't wanna break your heart (wanna give your heart a break)_ **

* * *

The problem, when you achieve something that: a) was vital to achieve; b) took a lot of effort, both physical and mental, to achieve; c) messed up with your sense of self and of reality; is that nobody tells you that you have to keep on living after it. Nobody tells you, when you put every cell of your body and every neuron of your brain and every sensible molecule of your being into a purpose, that there is still life on the other side.

Jemma tasted a little of this bitter truth after coming back from Maveth, of course. But it was different, somehow. Maybe she is just overwhelmed, because when she came back from Maveth she “only” had to care about getting better, while now they have to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. (again), and tend to May long-term injuries, and try to ease everybody’s trauma as much as they can.

But that is not true, because when she came back from Maveth she also had to worry about rescuing Will, and she stressed over not hurting Fitz’s feelings more than was unavoidable, and, well, S.H.I.E.L.D. always gets itself into one trouble or another. It’s not like coming back from Maveth was a picnic: she still panics sometimes when there are too many cloudy days in a row, and she still feels like she can not breathe if she is in any place where sand flies around, and even though she has tried to associate it with positive things- a well-worn sweater her grandmother knitted for her; the front cover of a lovely book Daisy lent her; first and foremost, Fitz’s eyes- she is still not very fond of the color blue.

It’s different this time, Jemma can’t explain exactly why and that fact alone makes her feel like she is drowning (another lovely not-so-unusual occurrence on her life). She sometimes waits around on the common room till everyone else has gone to bed and sits down on the floor. Presses her cheek against the cold wall. Closes her eyes. Tries to feel like she is home. She fails.

Maybe that is the problem: when she came back from Maveth, she had to adapt back to life on Earth, sure, but she was headed towards a clear destination; she was back where she belonged, on Earth, on this base. With Fitz. Now, everything is unclear: Can she still call this home? Is this even _real?_ Does she really want to be here, where she is haunted by nightmares and ghosts and awful triggers waiting for her just around the corner?

And that- doubting if she wants to stay with the organization to which she has dedicated the last thirteen years of her life- is not even the worst part. The worst part is Fitz.

* * *

Fitz tried to refute the belief of his father that he was stupid in a lot of ways, including- but not limited to- trying to make better all the appliances in his mother’s house since he was allowed a screwdriver, and getting a PhD by sixteen.

It doesn’t mean that sometimes he doesn’t feel still like his father was right.

He knows that something is not right with Jemma, he just can’t place his finger on which is the problem ands as a true scientist, he can’t fix something if he doesn’t know where is the source of the malfunction. Not that he would ever think about Jemma like she were a machine, but that is just the way his brain is wired.

He has seen Jemma recover from one too many traumatic experiences, and he knows that she is tough as nails. He is worried about her, of course, but mostly he is worried about his inability to connect with her and her experiences while he was a jackass connected to a virtual reality machine.

(He feels guilty all the time about The Framework, and AIDA, and Radcliffe, and everything in between. It’s like guilt has become an additional lobe on his brain, because he can’t process anything without going through that filter first. Maybe he could use this experience to connect with Jemma a little better, because she blames herself for everything that goes wrong in a ten-miles-radius around her, but he can’t, because Jemma is not to blame for everything that she chooses to blame herself for. And he is. _He really is. )_

She is not unkind with him, and they even shared a couple of intense, frenzied, passionate hours after they came back from The Framework, but since then she is growing distant in a slow but steady way. She hasn’t told him much about the dreadful hours before she and Daisy hacked their way into The Framework, but he found out enough from Daisy to be worried, and feel all the more guilty. He would even understand, given the circumstances, if she asked for a break from him, or even a breakup. He would understand, even thought it would break his heart.

He asked her once if she wanted to take a break (he meant from S.H.I.E.L.D., but he also let the possibility open to meant from him, just in case she wanted it and was trying to be considerate with his feelings: he loves her with all his being, but he can’t stand the idea of them being together because of pity or by the force of habit.) Maybe a vacation would do her good, because she can perform well on stressful environments, but she has always suffered long-term consequences.

She didn’t even raise her head to look at him before answering that she has to overlook May rehabilitation process. He got the message loud and clear: _it doesn’t matter what I want, because what I have to do will always come first._

* * *

Just like Fitz, Daisy knows something is off, but she is learning to allow people to come to her when they are ready, instead of jumping them and imposing herself. But everything has a limit, and when she finds Jemma sleeping on the common room’s couch at midnight, she decides that it’s time for an intervention. She lifts Jemma up in her arms, because she is gotten stronger during the past years, and Simmons really weighs nothing, and heads for her own bunk. She can only assume that there are reasons why Jemma is not sleeping on her own bed.

“Daisy? What’s going on?”

Despite the bizarre situation, Daisy can’t help but smile that Jemma is surprised but not startled, and that she snuggles closer into her arms instead of trying to break free.

“Just taking you to an actual bed to sleep in. We will talk about it in the morning, yeah?”

But Jemma is asleep again before Daisy can get an answer.

* * *

Jemma wakes up disoriented, but she doesn’t get in fight or flight mode, because Daisy’s regular breathing by her side was, during their stay in the Framework, not only a normal occurrence, but also a source of comfort and normalcy. She touches Daisy’s hair with trembling fingers, and she’s real, and it’s such a relief to not feel like there is a chasm in the middle of the bed for a change.

She goes back to sleep.

* * *

“I would like to say that you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but you once told me that it was nice to have me back because that way you had someone to talk to apart from Fitz. And since you are obviously _not talking_ to Fitz, as you usually do, I think you really _really_ need to talk to me.”

Jemma sighs, and the exhausted look in her eyes and her hands around the mug of tea make her look much older than what she really is. It pains Daisy a little, but it was to be expected, and who else they can blame that themselves, really.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, to be honest.”

“I don’t know either? But you are not okay, and maybe not a single one of us is okay, but I know you and you always choose a burden too heavy for your shoulders, and I want to lighten it, if I can.”

“My mind is full of ‘what ifs’, Daisy. How can you alleviate a thing that it’s not real?”

“Tell me, Jemma. Maybe talking it out will make it better.”

Jemma ponders for a while, and when she starts speaking, she doesn’t look Daisy in the eyes.

“After you left, after I was a witness of how much losing Lincoln broke you, I fantasized a lot about leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. Losing Fitz was too painful a concept to even consider, so I fantasized about a country-life where we both were happy and safe without ever having to worry about risking our lives. It was just a happy dream that helped me keep going when real life was hard. I wasn’t planning on carrying out on it, not on the next ten or fifteen years at least, but to think that someday we could have that, a safe and sane future, it helped. But now? After what happened? Now that fantasy has been shattered to pieces. I have to face now that the danger is not in the job itself. It’s in us. We are dangerous people. He is dangerous. And I’m tired of being scared and anxious and on edge all the time. _So tired._ How am I supposed to live the rest of my life like this, without collapsing?”

Daisy would give everything to have a comforting answer for her, but she doesn’t have one, and she is not sure anyone has one.

“I don’t know, Jem. I just don’t know. You are talking to a freaking living weapon.”

Jemma looks ashamed, and Daisy takes her hand and squeezes it tightly, because her intention wasn’t to make her friend feel bad.

“And you want to know the worst part? Maybe I should hate him for what his actions brought onto us, but I can’t, because I love him too much, still, to hate him. And I am trying to reject that part of him that makes him dangerous, but at the same time I am draw to the same man I have known for so many years, and I can’t reconcile the two.”

“No, I get it, that’s why it hurts. Because you love him. Besides not meaning to, he did some things, and that things had consequences that hurt you. And if you didn’t love him, you could move on, put some distance between him and you, and that would be it. But you can’t, because you love him. And that’s why it’s hard.”

There are no tears in Jemma’s cheeks, and that scares Daisy a little, because it might mean that she doesn’t have tears left to cry.

“Yeah, it is. But how can I make it better?”

“I would like nothing more than to have an answer for that, Simmons, but I don’t.”

* * *

(Her relationship with Coulson is not at its best, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t speak to him with the truth.

“You should hire a shrink. One that doesn’t kill inhumans in their free time would be rad, but I’m not picky. Maybe we keep fucking up because we are fucked up.”

“You are saying we are bad agents because we don’t talk enough about our feelings?” There is something strange in his eyes, but she doesn’t know if it is amusement or weariness or disbelief. Probably a little bit of each.

“Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know. I only know that we need help.”)

* * *

When Daisy almost kidnaps her from her room on a saturday late night, the last thing Jemma expects is to be leaded to Daisy’s bunk and instructed to sit down on her desk in front of her laptop.

“Daisy, what are you doing?”

“Setting you up for a secure video-call.” Daisy answers while she types absentmindedly.

“With whom?”

Daisy takes a long while to answer, and Jemma is about to insist with her question when a charging window pops up.

“You need someone to talk to, but I don’t think it’s fair from us to expect May to focus on something else than her recovery, and I’m too close to the situation to even try to be impartial.” Jemma is about to protest, she is fine, she doesn’t need anybody to fret over her, but apparently the pause was just for dramatics. “So I got you the next best thing: Barbara Morse.”

“Bobbi? How on earth did you contact Bobbi?” Daisy _has_ to be pulling her leg, but when Jemma turns around to look at the screen, Bobbi’s face is there, smiling in all her greek-goddess like beauty and ferocious eyes. Jemma gapes.  

“Let’s just say that I have a big sister instinct that kicks in when I know any of you need my help.”

She is not trying to be mean, she is terribly grateful for this, she just answers in automatic. “We have needed you a lot in the last few years.”

Bobbi’s smile is sad, and Jemma feels a painful pang inside her ribcage.

“Yeah, well, a big sister can only do so much.”

* * *

She doesn’t want to waste her precious minutes with Bobbi talking about her _issues,_ but after answering Jemma’s questions about her well-being and Hunter’s, Bobbi always gets back on track. Daisy explained the big picture a little, and Bobbi doesn’t let it go, and Jemma feels ashamed and guilty, because they pulled Bobbi out almost from the dead just so she can have a shoulder to cry on.

Of course, she is not good at concealing all of that, or at least not good enough to trick Barbara Morse.

“Simmons, don’t you think that a best way to not ‘waste my time’ is to tell me what i want to hear?”

“What else can I tell you? You know everything already.”

“Yeah, from _Daisy._ How about I hear it from _you?”_

Jemma inhales sharply, but she doesn’t have a good cop-out to tell to that piercing eyes, so she begins.

* * *

When she finishes speaking, Jemma feels like crying. Telling everything to someone who wasn’t there, and who hasn’t been here in a long while makes everything seem smaller, more trivial, but not less real. She can’t help but feeling that she is bothering everyone with these _silly feelings_ that she can’t shake off.

Dirty linen should not be washed in public, Jemma is very aware, but the lines of propriety had started fading a long time ago within this team, and she knows that she should talk to Fitz first and foremost, but she can not find inside herself the coldness and the audacity required to stand tall and tell him what is going inside her head.

Bobby seems to ponder for a little while before speaking, and Jemma sits down on her fingers because a little pain helps her stay focused.

“First of all, Jemma, I hope you know that you don’t have to suffer through anything you don’t want for anyone’s sake but your own. You could go through that door right now, or you could just break up with him, and I think nobody would blame you, especially not him. But I think Daisy wanted me to talk to you because you want to make things work, yes?”

Jemma feels a rush of relief at Bobbi’s words, and somehow that relief loosens a knot in her chest that allows some tears to flow to her eyes.

“I don’t want to break up with him.” She doesn’t say _I don’t want to leave_ , because there is no way she could fool Bobbi Morse, the closest thing to a living lie-detector, with her lying.

“Good. But to help you with this, I have to trust that you will never do something that hurts you or makes you miserable. Can I trust you with that?”

Jemma is then totally aware of the weeks that Bobbi spent watching her from afar while she was undercover, since before Jemma even knew of her existence. And, well, she can understand a little why Bobbi feels like she needs to ask for such thing.

“I can promise that I will try my best.”

It’s the best she can do without lying, and Bobbi acknowledges that with a half-smile.

“Okay, I can work with that. Can I tell you a story?”

“Oh! Um, yes, of course.”

Bobbi smiles again at her surprise, and Jemma aches for being able to hug her one more time, but she can’t say it out loud, because she is trying very hard to not be ungrateful of this rare opportunity Daisy offered her.

“When I first learned to fight like I do, I felt like I was on top of the world, like I could do anything. And then I broke the jaw of one of my partners during training. It was a turning point for me. It terrified me to know that I had all this potentially dangerous power in my fists, and that maybe I didn’t know how to control it. I had the ability to protect everything I loved but I also could destroy it if I weren’t being careful.”

Bobbi makes a pause, and Jemma nods with her head, because he can understand the sentiment: she had to subject herself to a couple of ethics classes during university, but she always was too young and too eager to put much thought into them, and it wasn’t until later in life that she went back time and time again over that thoughts and dilemmas.

“I would like to say that I have it under control, now, after all this years, but I would be lying. I am, like almost everyone is, I believe, a work in progress. Since I recovered from my knee injury, I don’t train to be stronger: I train to know myself better, to test my limits, to know how far can I go before I lose control. We are dangerous people, Jemma. The outcome of our actions can vary widely, and a lot of that depends upon how much in control we are, and a little in luck and in chance. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not very good at teaching where the stopping point is, or at helping you figure out where it should be.”  

Jemma can remember a lot of instances where that was true in her relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D.: whether it was S.H.I.E.L.D. asking too much of her or S.H.I.E.L.D. asking her to not go deeper into some research, disregarding the greater good because it contradicted its own agenda. Jemma has always considered that the good outweighed the bad in that relationship, and that’s why she stays, but it can’t be denied that those disagreements have taken their toll on her.

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And we can not forget that we are all potentially dangerous people. Because forgetting or denying it would make us even more dangerous. Look at Daisy, look at May, look at me. Look at yourself. You could save a man’s life, but you could also kill him unnoticed in twenty different ways. Fitz got potential, there is power in his hands and in his mind. That power can be dangerous, can be destructive, yes, but that doesn’t mean he is inherently bad. Everything powerful can be dangerous. And maybe he got overcame by fear, and there was someone who took advantage of that fear and who abused his trust. Yes, he has to learn how to be more careful. He is a grown man, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have things to learn still.”

Jemma inhales sharply, because everything Bobbi is saying makes sense, everything is logical and sounds good on her head- Jemma knows Bobbi is trying to be kind and honest at the same time- but it doesn’t lessen the weight on her chest, that dull pain that worsens when she looks at him and that is responsible for making both of their lives much more miserable in the last few weeks.

“I understand that, believe me, I do. But, um. I know I am such an hypocrite for feeling like this, I know I am. I have done terrible things, and terrible things have happened because of me. I can’t forget about that. But, and I feel terrible for this, I can’t help but hold him to this unreachable standard. He always has been the best person I’ve ever met, and I know it’s unfair, but maybe it just hurts because I realised he is not perfect. And I feel awful, but it is what it is.”

There is fondness in Bobbi’s smile, and Jemma squirms, uncomfortable, because she doesn’t deserve this much sympathy.

“You are only human, Jemma. You always expect so much from yourself, it’s only reasonable you expect so much from him. You are suffering because you can’t reconcile the man you wanted him to be with the man he is, and that is only natural. But people change and people make mistakes. Life is hard, and people react to trauma in different ways. And maybe you have to stop looking at him like the man you want him to be, and start looking at him like the man he is. Take this from a woman who has gotten back together innumerable times with the same man: the first step for making it work is _wanting_ to make it work. You have to ask yourself some important questions: do you still love him? Can he still make you happy? There are still things you find endearing and funny and precious about him? If the answers to all these questions are yes, give it a try. I’m not saying you have to give up on what you want from him, or even from a partner in general. But maybe… maybe don’t let that be the _only_ thing in your mind right now? Don’t think only about the bad things. Try to appreciate the good things in the man he is and in the man he can be.”              

* * *

It hurts how easily they got used to the distance between them. Maybe her talk with Bobbi hasn’t exactly eased her pain and her disappointment, but it has opened her eyes to what Fitz is going through, that is something she didn’t consider much while she was battling with her own head.    

Fitz looks as miserable as she feels, with deep bags under his eyes, his hands shakier than normal, and he is not snappy, like he usually gets when he is anxious and tired, but more like a silent, soulless version of himself.

It pains Jemma to see him like this, and that’s for her the first signal that Bobbi told her to be aware of: his well-being and his happiness are still more important to her than her own moral ground. It’s not exactly a new discovery, but Jemma wasn’t aware that it still was true, and it feels like a big revelation.

He is on his side on the lab, and the few feet that separate them feel like an abyss. They have gone through much worse, they have overcome an entire universe of distance, why these few feet feel so unsurpassable?

Bobbi gave her some suggestions, and in a true Jemma Simmons’s fashion, Jemma got them memorised by heart: _Share with him the things that used to make both of you happy before this. Shut down your brain for a while and let instinct and habit take over, ponder how it feels, if it is comforting, if it is sweet, if you ache for more. Initiate physical intimacy that doesn’t lead to sex, and initiate sex, if you feel like it. And for God's sake, Jemma, talk to him, I bet he is hurting too._ Her fingers are aching to touch him, and she wants to grant them their wish.

“Fitz?” She announces her presence, because she doesn’t want to startle him, but to no avail: he drops his tablet in his lap, and he looks up like he is afraid he might be hallucinating.

“Jemma.” His voice is barely above a whisper, but Jemma enjoys the way it curls around her name, like it is a thing too precious to let it go.

“Are you busy?”

“Um.” He looks down at the blueprints he is touching up on his screen and lies blatantly, but after so many weeks of so much distance, she can't really blame him. “No.” 

“Okay, then. Do you think we could leave early?”

She knows the lab techs pay more attention to their relationship than to any soap opera, but she forces herself to look only at him, because he is the only thing that matters right now. She puts her fingers on his bicep and squeezes a little for good measure. Fitz looks down at her hand the way he looks at an equation he can’t quite decipher.

“... sure.”

She takes his hand and leads him to their bunk and she tries not to think that he looks like he is being taken to the gallows. Jemma was hoping for some spontaneity, to just let themselves be, but the truth is that they- and her especially- are not the best at letting things run their natural course. She stops at the door of their bunk, turns to look at him, and tries to let all the tenderness she feels seep into her smile. It feels strange, her lips tense and sore; she has to also let _them_ get used to the sensation again.  

“Fitz.” There is something in his eyes that makes her heart flutter. She feels choked, too aware of his skin on her skin, and it takes her back to her first weeks on Earth after Maveth: the experience of re-learning every sensation her body was able to feel, the enormous fortune of all that becoming so natural that could be taken for granted. She hoists herself on her tiptoes and kisses him barely on the left corner of his mouth. Fitz takes a sharp breath, startled, and Jemma hesitates between giving him space and pushing the issue. His hand ghosts on her hip, not actually touching her but so close that Jemma can feel the heat it irradiates, and that tips the scales. Her arms snake around his waist, her hands splayed on his back, and she pulls him close. She kisses him with every bit of emotion she can muster, and he lets himself be kissed, with a passivity he hasn’t showed since the first few days after they started dating.

She taps a pattern on his back, their unspoken signal to tell the other that they have permission to move forward, and Fitz whimpers while he puts his hands on her cheeks. Jemma has not forgotten what it’s like to be kissed by him, and they have had more passionate, intense kiss than this one, of course; but it shakes her to the core just how much love he can carry on to the kiss, how safe and warm and loved he can make her feel just with his lips grazing against hers. It is, indeed, a revelation, and Jemma doesn’t regret the weeks they have spent apart, because she needed the time and the space to process and to understand her feelings, but Bobbi was right: this definitely helps. 

It scares Jemma a little. Reason and rationality have always been the driving forces of her life. She is not that comfortable letting herself be led by sentiment, by instinct, by her heart instead of her mind. That was always Fitz’s forte, and well, it seems only natural that it is catching a little on her, too. It also makes sense that it would happen when he is involved, that what she feels for him can overpower everything else.

His hands on her face feel like a brand, something she always want to carry with her. She only realises she is trembling when he breaks the kiss and rest his forehead against hers, looking at her with worried eyes.

“Jemma? Are you okay?”

It is scary, because she is still a little angry, she is still hurt, she still wishes he had taken better decisions, but she still wants this, him, everything. Maybe that’s life, that’s love, not to ignore the ugly bits, but to try to overcome them together. She chooses him, she chooses to do the work, alone and with him, and she wants to enjoy the feeling that there is strength on that choice. It is a freeing feeling, because it means that she has a goal and therefore she only needs to make smaller, simpler decisions to keep this show on the road. Things are not going to be easy- they never are, nor with her, nor with them, nor with S.H.I.E.L.D.- but Jemma Simmons never gets scared by a challenge.

“No. I’m not okay. But I’m better, and trying to get there.”

* * *

May might have some imperfections, but unawareness is not one of them. She is convalescent still, or so they tell her, and people tiptoes around her; it’s exhausting for them and infuriating for her, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t notice things.

No one is okay, and it’s understandable: May wasn’t there for the fallout of her own disappearance and how it affected people, but the “kidnapped and connected to a virtual reality against your will” card is enough on her books. And that’s not even considering Daisy and Jemma, who had to deal with an army of robots out to get them, all on their own.     

Jemma is suffering particularly, and a good deal has to do with things she has to sort out with Fitz and inside her own head, and that’s why May hasn’t spoken out before. But when things are starting to go a little bit smoother, May knows she needs to speak to her: the most dangerous part is just when things seem a little better, because if you get overconfident, you loose.

* * *

“Simmons, you don’t owe S.H.I.E.L.D. nothing.”

Jemma looks at May gaping, like she thinks her own brain might be betraying her. It’s so unlike her usual quiet self that Jemma can not process it right now.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. You don’t owe S.H.I.E.L.D. nothing. If you want to leave, leave.” There is a ‘no bulshit’ expression in May’s face that tells Jemma that no interruption would be welcomed. “This fucked all of us over. I can get another doctor to overlook my recovery and I’d be just fine, but only you can heal yourself. You have been through a lot in the last few years, and you never took a break long enough to process anything, or to heal. You have always been more concerned about the wellbeing of others than about yours, whether it was Fitz’s or Daisy’s or Will’s or mine. And you need to stop.”

“I’m not weak, I can handle it.” It’s her automatic answer, and she blushes at May’s raised eyebrow.

“I think that the fact alone that you are still alive, standing and here is proof enough that you are strong, Jemma. But strength is also about knowing when to stop.”

It’s so similar to what Bobbi told her- about the importance of Doing The Thing, but also of knowing when to Stop Doing The Thing- that Jemma freezes.

“But you never stopped.” It’s a harsh statement in some way, but Jemma makes it more out of surprise than out of nastiness. May acknowledges it with a nod.

“In a way, I did. But in spite of that, I want you, all of you, but especially you and Fitz and Daisy, who are still young, to do better than I did. That’s my goal. Will you take my advice?”

What can you say to a woman that has been through everything that can happen to anyone, and it’s on the other side, still standing, still strong, still gentle and tough in the appropriate proportions? What can you say to her, except yes?

“Yes.”

“Get outside. It’s the best you can do. The fresh air and the clear sky will do you good. Take Fitz with you if you want, or go alone. Remember what we are fighting for. And when you have forgiven yourself, and forgiven the world, and forgiven him, then come back.”        

* * *

Things are not perfect, of course, but definitely they are better now that Jemma has taken as a policy to tell Fitz everything that bothers her and to get him involved in trying to develop a way of living that allows them to feel safer and less guilty.

Jemma has May’s advice underlying everything she does and everything she decides, but she considers that they have a duty to S.H.I.E.L.D., now that the entire organization is yet again in shambles. They are still standing, why shouldn’t they stay where they always have?

(She hasn’t heard that _he, who fights and runs, lives to fight another day,_ apparently.)

Until one day she is on the lab looking for the results on some simulations, and she starts looking through Fitz’s files to see if maybe they have been misplaced, and she sees what he has been working on for the last few weeks. She can’t even register it at first, because her brain cannot process how he can be working on something so behind his capacities without being angered in frustration or bored to tears. And then she understands.   

She has been so submerged on her own fears and troubled feelings that she hasn’t realized that he is probably afraid too. Disappointed with himself. Despising himself. She can't even begin to imagine what must be going on inside his head, especially if he is willing to do all this drudge work that has always driven him out of his mind since they were practically children.

Her hands tremble and with the dull papers in hand, she doesn’t even stop to look for the results that were her intended goal before marching toward their bunk.

When she opens the door, Fitz is half seated on the bed reading a novel, and really, when on the last twelve or thirteen years have they had time for reading fiction in the middle of the day? How did she not notice?

“We are going away.”

Fitz looks at her with raised eyebrows, and she offers him his own results pages, and he frowns.

“What are you doing with this, Jemma?”

“I was looking for some results that must have gotten mixed up, but that is besides the point. What matters is the kind of work you are doing, Fitz. You could do this while you were an undergrad. With a hand tied behind your back. And you would still get bored in the process.”

He has the good sense to blush and avert his eyes.

“So?”

Before answering, she puts the papers on her nightstand and sits down next to him to hold his hand. This will be hard enough without them being apart.

“I can understand while you are doing this. But it pains me, and I’m sure it pains you too. Your work has always been a source of pride and joy to you, and you don’t deserve to lose that. And that’s one of the reasons why I think we should get away for a little while.”

He is not letting her hand go, but his eyes are somber, and Jemma aches for him.

“Why would it matter? I’m not afraid of the future, Jemma, and I can not run away from the past and the very real things that already happened.”

Jemma has already told him once that just because his work could be corrupted by someone else, that doesn’t make him or it evil, but she can understand that it’s a concept hard to swallow after everything that has happened in the last few weeks. May was right: they need to take a breath and give themselves the time to forgive the world, themselves and each other before keep going with their lives, because otherwise they will become permanently bitter and angry.

She traces the veins on his arm with the tip of her index finger, and thinks of that dreadful nine days when him being alive was all that mattered, it had to be all that mattered, because it was all she had.

“I know. But Fitz, time is still running and life is still happening. And guilt is not going to help you get any further. Believe me, I should know. There is nothing we can do about the past now: we can only think about how we are going to do better in the future. We didn’t have our vacation after what happened with Daisy, and I think it’s overdue.” He looks at her then with big, pleading eyes, and Jemma is bold enough to keep talking, to say everything she didn’t realise she wanted until this very moment. “We need to breath and regroup, Fitz. We need a chance to remember our happy memories and to remember what we went through for a chance to be together. We need to remember that we can be destructive, yes, but that we can be magnificent too. We need to remember what we want from the world, and I want to remember that I want it with you. And I think that we need to be away from S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to do that.”

He inhales sharply and Jemma pretends she doesn’t see the tears hanging from his eyelashes.

“I can’t- Jemma, I can’t, I can’t promise you it will be easy. Things are not exactly pleasing inside my head right now.”

“That’s okay. I’m not asking that from you. I’m only asking that you try, and that you let me try with you.”            


End file.
